Pope doing away with limbo

[tomdemaine]

So much for the imutable word of God. Now if he'd just do us all a big favour and get rid of hell I'd be much oblidged.

[KenProspero]

Remembering an old George Carlin routine -- I wonder what happens to all those babies who were in Limbo before the Pope did away with it .... I hope they get promoted.

[Peter666]

Holy crap, I am travelling and have not kept up to date on these doings for the last week. I thought this was a joke, but it is not.

There is a defined Catholic doctrine made by a previous Pope which condemns anyone who tries to do away with limbo. If Pope Benedict is serious, than this is proof that he is a heretic and essentially contradicting the doctrine of original sin.

[BluffTHIS!]

You need to get a copy of Dr. Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, and read his explanation for the various levels of certainty regarding various doctrines. And it was published during your favorite decade of the 50's.

The concept of limbo has always been a theoretical one to explain where unbaptized infants might go. It has no basis in divine revelation. Which is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church says it places its "hope" in divine providence regarding their fate without trying to theorize about that fate when same has not been definitively revealed.

But hey Peter, since you are practically a protestant anyway, why not just adopt the Calvinist position that unbaptized infants are going to hell and not worry about all this limbo stuff?

[David Sklansky]

"But hey Peter, since you are practically a protestant anyway, why not just adopt the Calvinist position that unbaptized infants are going to hell and not worry about all this limbo stuff?"

Then how come he is the only one Not Ready is afraid to debate?

[BluffTHIS!]

Because protestant theology is full of internal logical contradictions and Peter has a good knowledge of catholic vs. protestant apologetics and logic to pwn NR. And if you go back through my "Question for Protestants" and "What You Protestants Don't Seem To Get" threads as well as posts in other threads, you will find plenty of examples of NR getting backed into a logical corner by myself and saying something like "I didn't read the rest of your post, maybe tomorrow" and not coming back to it or just not responding at all. So he really isn't debating me fully either, although he doesn't like my sarcastic tone sometimes and that probably furnishes him with an excuse not to respond to something he couldn't rebut anyway.

Now I am of course exaggerating somewhat by calling Peter protestant when he belongs to a dissident sect of catholicism, although I think pegging him as similar to a High Church Anglican is appropriate. And he has a similar absorption with "details" like NR, although he uses them to turn minor theological points into major ones through miscontruing the words of the current catechism and trying to make liturgical details into doctrines, in order to justify refusal of submission to the pope and the teachings of the college of bishops.

[Peter666]

You have made two errors regarding my theology. The first was made in the previous thread regarding the modernist Catechism when you accused me of lack of charity for not going along with your personal interpretation of the Gospels. As a Catholic, we are bound by dogmatic and doctrinal conclusions which I held to. Your personal interpretation of the Gospels and judging of charity is the true sign of Protestantism, for it acts without an objective infallible authority. In fact, you constantly criticize Not Ready for this, but when confronted with it yourself, you take a Protestant approach.

The second error is in what you interpret my position on Limbo to be. First, I have read Ott and am very familiar with Catholic dogma, doctrine and various degrees of theological certainty thank you very much. I never said that Limbo is a dogma or doctrine. It is a theological opinion based on Logic. The 17th century Pope who condemned those condemning Limbo did not define an actual Limbo, but protected the logical validity of those views. The debate in the past was whether the unbaptized go to Hell or Limbo, not whether they have the chance of going to Heaven.

What Pope Benedict has now done is say that there is no Limbo like place to begin with, so that means that the unbaptized either go to Heaven or the Hell. Of course, this contradicts St. Thomas Aquinas, myriads of theologicans and the education of Catholics for the last few centuries.

So what is Pope Benedict really saying? That the unbaptized go to Heaven, thus contradicting the Dogma of necessity of Baptism and Original Sin, or is he saying the unbaptized go straight to Hell?

[BluffTHIS!]

Peter, I think you are again misinterpreting the Holy Father's views and drawing unwarranted conclusions from them. You are right that limbo is a logically possible theory, but the Holy Father isn't saying otherwise, just that we don't need to try to theorize about such a "detail" to the point of having it in the catechism. And from that position, you cannot validly infer that he means that unbaptized babies must go to heaven. But of course you aren't actually stating that you infer that, but by asking the question just erecting another hypothetical heretical straw man, like you have said JPII was "suspected" of heresy.

And it is humorous for you to accuse me of "personal" interpretations when I merely state the teachings of the Magisterium with its 3000+ bishops in communion with the pope. Whereas you are asserting the personal interpretations of 4 bishops and 50 priests who are not in communion with the pope. If the pope agreed with your group's views, as small as it is, then you could state that it was standing against the theologically wrong majority. But the key point of the Arian heresy which you like to allude to, is that the see of Rome never succumbed to it even when a majority of the bishops may have. That is a critical difference.

[tek]

It's a marketing ploy to get new recruits. Remember the marketing drive to recruit pagans where they agreed to move the sabbath to sundays... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Peter666]

Everything I say I have backed up with Church teaching. You claim to represent the 2000 year Magisterium when the current Magisterium is contradicting the previous one.

Now that Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) has decided to cow tow to the modernists in offering a more "compassionate" view of the fate of unbaptized infants, he is scandalizing every single Catholic who has ever been taught about the concept of limbo, and he is contradicting the premier theological authority of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas. So is Ratzinger right?

If we can hope for the eternal salvation of the unbaptized, we can certainly hope for the eternal salvation of mortal sinners for "compassionate" reasons. After all, why would an all loving God condemn a sinner to an eternity of Hell? Why would he not allow unbaptized babies to see the Beatific vision (even though he allows them to die in sometimes cruel ways).

So what now? Do we erase the part of the Catechisms approved by the Church which discuss limbo? Do we ignore ST. Thomas Aquinas and the interesting historical context of this question? Do we ignore the Catholic Encyclopedia?

But now I demand an answer to this, and you can ask the Pope. Where do unbaptized babies go when they die?